92 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • AUGUST 2018
REAR VIEW
RFK: RIPPLE OF HOPE
By ANNIE WILKINSON
Fifty years ago, American soldiers
were being slaughtered — nearly
17,000 by year’s end — in Vietnam.
African Americans were hobbled by
discrimination and the Black Power
movement fueled riots. In April
1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who
advocated nonviolent protest against
discrimination, was assassinated.
Enter Robert Francis Kennedy,
campaigning for president in Indianapolis.
He was shy, so nerve-ridden
that when speaking in public his legs
shook behind the podium. But he
spoke calmly, without notes, telling
King supporters that their leader was
dead in Memphis:
“What we need in the United States
is … compassion toward one another,
and a feeling of justice toward those
who still suffer within our country,
whether they be white or they be
black.”
Dr. King’s murder caused protest
everywhere except Indianapolis.
Many said that Bobby Kennedy saved
the city.
LIFE OF SERVICE
The seventh of nine fiercely competitive
children, Bobby Kennedy
(RFK) was born into Massachusetts
wealth in November 1925, indulged
by his mother, dubbed “the runt of
the litter” by his father, and overshadowed
by older brothers.
But quiet determination impelled
him to graduate from Harvard and
study law. He served his brother John
Fitzgerald Kennedy by managing his
successful 1952 U.S. Senate campaign
and 1958 reelection bid. In 1960, JFK
resigned as senator and won the
presidency. He appointed his brother
U.S. attorney general; RFK became a
close confidant and enforced civil
rights laws.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy
was assassinated.
Despite the devastation, from
under the cloak of sadness emerged
a compassionate RFK. Championing
change for the urban poor and disadvantaged,
nine months after the
assassination he announced his New
York senator candidacy. When he
spoke at Atlantic City’s Democratic
Convention in August 1964, the delegates’
applause roared for 20 minutes.
SERENITY ON THE
SOUND
Establishing residency, RFK rented
Marymead, a woodsy, 25-room
Colonial Glen Cove mansion. He
appreciated suburbia, having spent
time in Riverdale and Bronxville. He
moved to Marymead in September,
resigned as attorney general, and
accepted the senator nomination.
Wherever he appeared, crowds
besieged him. At Hicksville’s 36th
annual Labor Day volunteer firemen’s
parade, hundreds lined the
route; the Nassau County Police
Department added 20 men to the 40-
man detail. Later RFK watched his
children swim at Piping Rock Country
Club in Locust Valley, returned
home to nap, and held a cookout on
the grounds.
That fall RFK lunched with his
wife Ethel and campaigned in Long
Beach, Central Islip, and across Long
Island. A new neighbor moved in:
widowed former First Lady Jackie
Kennedy, his late brother’s wife. To
avoid prying eyes, she chose Dosoris
Island’s Creek House, a 10-room
fieldstone structure accessible only
by a stone bridge. Like RFK’s house,
hers faced Long Island Sound.
They were supportive of each
other and rumors of romance flew.
Ignoring them, Bobby campaigned,
smiling, waving, shaking people’s
hands. The people voted, electing
him with 720,000 votes.
He conveyed a ripple of hope as he
advocated for the urban poor, took
up La Causa of striking California
farmworkers, and proposed suspending
U.S. bombing over North
Vietnam, while riots in Harlem,
Watts, and most major U.S. cities
continued.
In March 1968, the guest of honor
at the Sky Island Club at the Garden
City Hotel, not realizing the microphones
were on, confirmed his
presidential ambitions. His formal
announcement came the next day,
but national newspapers had already
zeroed in on the slip. He could
no longer ignore a country in crisis.
UNHEALED WOUNDS
He won the California primary on
June 4, 1968 at Los Angeles’ Ambassador
Hotel. In his victory speech,
he said that despite the division,
violence, and disenchantment of the
last few years, “We can start to work
together.”
He waved to the crowd, and as he
moved slowly through the kitchen
to shake hands with employees, he
was shot by gunman Sirhan Sirhan.
Robert F. Kennedy, age 42, died the
next day.
Robert Kennedy speaking to civil rights demonstrators in front of the
Justice Department on June 14, 1963
Robert F. Kennedy during the
1968 Indiana primary